Nintendo is so proud of the feature that it even included a little C button right on your Joy-Con (which was a point of excited speculation before the reveal) so you can jump into Game Chat whenever you like.
Unfortunately, it also tried to bury the fact that this Game Chat feature will actually require a Nintendo Switch Online subscription once the free trial period ends on March 31, 2026.
Now, you may be wondering what the button does if you don’t have a subscription? Thankfully, Nintendo’s vice president of player and product experience, Bill Trinen, was interviewed by Polygon on that very same topic. Trinen explains that the button will let you “find out about the NSO subscription there and get a sense of some of the functionality.” It’s basically a button that asks you to pay up.
It’s basically a button that asks you to pay up
We’ve gotten to the point where button functions are microtransactions…
This is why I emulate games and just use Linux
I don’t have a Switch 2 and am not interested in getting one, but I do know rage-bait articles about non-issues. I can’t understand someone throwing a tantrum because there’s a button on their controller that they don’t need. Just ignore it?
Hey, I bought a car that has a “Bluelink+” option to talk to their support people. It’s a subscription service which I don’t pay for. It doesn’t harm me in the least that the button is there and I don’t use it. I don’t even mind that the ads for the car mention that it’s a feature. It would be weird if it did upset me.
It was clear before the release of the console that gamechat was part of NSO.
People bitched, but in the end most of us have the thing anyway. Personally, I don’t use it at all but I did get the camera now it’s dirt cheap because it has other functions
It’s a nothing burger but I guess I can see a larger point that may grow into a real concern at some stage.
I have had a switch 2 for over a year, I have yet to press the C button once.
I’ve pressed it a couple times.
By accident of course
I did not know this button existed until this post.
Get out of here with your facts and rational thought, if Nintendo does something it’s automatically uniquely bad.
Especially because video games are theMOST IMPORTANT METRIC of a FUNCTIONAL SOCIETY
The rational thing to do is to allow binding that key to some other function, but that wouldn’t be miserable for the users so they won’t allow that
But you can rebind it.
System settings -> Accessibility -> Button mapping.
Wow. Even Sony doesn’t require the subscription service to voice chat with friends.
Yet!
Stop giving them ideas, Nintendo! 😩
Realistically, this is also true of the Dualsense on PS5. It has a clear, dedicated LED button to disable the microphone, and that mic is rarely used for anything but online chat.
Afaik, it also can mute all PS5 audio, not just voice chat.
That’s never been the case. Source: I can never tell if I’m muted or umuted
Press and hold the mute button to mute your mic and to turn off sound output from the speakers on your controller and TV. Press the mute button again to return to the original state.
PS5 Quick start guide, page 11.
Article from april 7th 2025. And nobody uses it still.
Leave it to Shitendo to include a dedicated button that does nothing but advertise a subscription for a service that is completely free on PC. Free on a Switch too, if you mod it first.
Don’t worry, though, homebrew software will allow you to rebind it to something else. Just wait for that, and don’t use Nintendo’s consoles unmodded. Stock firmware is a mostly unusable piece of shit.
It’s been 10 years since the original Switch launched, and the only themes you get are… light and dark. Or you can have thousands of themes if you jailbreak the console. And save managers. And cheats if you want to skip the grind in some games. Better performance on Switch OLED and Lite. Emulation of older systems. And the list goes on and on.
There’s so much these consoles are capable of, that Nintendo desperately wants to block or charge you insane prices for. Mostly just block.
Wow wait until they find out you can do this for free on the internet for like, the last 2 decades.
“Do you guys not have phones?” - Blizzard
The [c]ash-in button
I really don’t need Nintendo as much as they seem to think I do.
I’d wonder if team speak still exists, but I never play multiplayer games anyway, so it’s a moot point. Also I can’t afford a Switch because I’m an American.
The ignored button.
You can remap it to another button in the settings, or turn it off entirely if it’s annoying
Now, you may be wondering what the button does if you don’t have a subscription? Unfortunately, it also tried to bury the fact that this Game Chat feature will actually require a Nintendo Switch Online subscription once the free trial period ends on March 31, 2026.
Was not this already known after the release of Switch 2? I can vaguely remember people complaining that you needed an subscription to use the particular feature and if they did not, the button was just… an useless button.
This is why I emulate games and just use Linux
I too emulate Switch 1 games but unfortunately, Switch 2 games cannot be emulated yet.
Was not this already known after the release of Switch 2?
yes, the “GameChat Welcome Offer” was talked about pretty extensively immediately after the launch.
Also, in System Settings → Accessibility → Button Mapping, you can literally remap the C button to be any other button on your controller, so calling it a useless button is just plain wrong
To be fair, it is not gonna be very usefull to remap it to any other button as the other button is also already on your controller. It would just be a duplicate function.
Not entirely useless, but also not far off. It might eventually become useful as a homebrew menu button if someone ever figures out how to hack it
Now that you mention this, I think I’ll map mine to be a home dup anyway, because the only times I push it is when I confuse it for the other one.
Maybe there’s an edge case where it would be more useful to map it to something else in split joy-con mode, not sure.
Yeah it’s situational, but based on my experience with the grip buttons on the pro controller, I’m sure there’s some games where it’d come in handy
Nintendo didn’t even try to hide this, it was touted as a bonus during the launch announcement that this feature would be free for everyone to try for a limited time.
This article is ragebait. There is plenty to call Nintendo out for; “they made a feature that they TOLD US ABOUT” isn’t one of them. Trash article from trash rag.
Was not this already known after the release of Switch 2?
Yes, which is why this article is from 2025. Why OP is posting it now is anyone’s guess.
anyone who uses nintendo products gets what they deserve
You must be fun at parties.
Wait, you have to have an online subscription to play with other people remotely anyway… Why does it matter that you can’t use a voice chat feature without that same subscription…?
Like, as a splatoon player who played and grind-ed rank without actual game servers while paying a subscription I absolutely was and still am mad about THAT, but given that thats the case, does it matter that you can’t use voice chat without a subscription…? Am I just totally missing something?
No, that’s pretty much it.
Sure it’s annoying to have a whole button dedicated to it (I mean, even to me, I do have an online subscription but I never use that feature).
Were they planning to use their switch 2 as a phone? That would only work between switch 2s that would have to be connected, but not subscribed to any actual online service?
That thing is of very little use outside of online gaming.
Just so you know, you can remap the button or turn it off entirely in the system settings under Accessibility
I’m not sure I would use it for something else than online games.
For now, I’ve stopped due to asking my phone number.
The Switch 2 is a ticking time bomb, a lot of its functions, including gaming itself if considering the “game key cards”, being tied to services.
